Damn, this one cut deep 3 of my favorite devs ever......sad but true

I am also LGBTQI. So don't assume that he is the only one here, I have every right to my views as they do to theirs.

But I digress. - Even if you aren't LGBTQI, you can speak up, the entire point of the rainbow flag was inclusiveness, not exclusiveness, so it does include heterosexuals as part of the community.

I think that's ultimately the big issue... Rather than peoples baseless whinging and moaning about LGBTQI characters being included in the game.

The story just doesn't develop the same level of complexity, weight or urgency like prior titles and the combat has been "streamlined" from Origins. - Origins was a once off thing I am afraid, we knew they were leaning towards real time action with Dragon Age 2 which got further refined with inquisition, so it's only natural to assume that same kind of progress would occur with the 4th entry.

Mass Effect 1-2-3 had perceived repercussions for the choices you make... And a choice in Mass Effect 1 can affect Mass Effect 2 or 3.
It was incredible writing.
I mean... If you don't save Wrex for example, then that character won't appear in Mass Effect 2 or 3, but the developer did "replace" that character with another to fill that void with the similar lines and the story continues as intended... But just the perception you lost a character and possible story is impactful.

It's a linear game that doesn't feel linear in it's story.

Dragon Age 2 was so far removed from Origins those kinds of story tie-ins were minimal and Inquisition decided to do it's own thing... Morrigan and Allistar are still two of my favorite characters and other than a Cameo on the odd occasion, their choices don't have any real perceived impact.

It may have been different if all the Dragon Age games used the same characters like Mass Effect, but when they are based in different regions with different threats and on a different timeline, it's a hard ask.

Watching Ironmouse stream at this moment, and she was asked "you gonna play the new DA?"

Ironmouse: "nooo thank you"

But she is however really hyped to play the new Monster Hunter.


When the highest subbed/popular Vtuber on Twitch doesn't wanna play your game, you know something's wrong.

Was suggested this video on YT, halfway through it right now, but the guy is basically on point with the crap that's been going on within the games industry (and others). The part about Blackrock "forcing behaviours" is especially and morally disgusting. 

Hyper-simplistic writing is sweeping the industry.  Writing without depth, where the story, the plot, and even the dialogue are a shallow facade stretched over the bones of the game.  The modern approach seems to be that nothing really matters in the game-world.  There is no serious attempt at continuity or consequence.  When it comes to conversation, they toss aside actual human speech and instead pound the point home with the verbal equivalent of a giant squeaky hammer.  The story can be extremely convoluted but it doesn't have to make any sense.  Plot holes are ignored, plot points are dropped, and the direction is fixed to one outcome even if they obscure it with the illusion of choice.

Why, though?  Why is this the trend?

Emil Pagliarulo, the lead writer for Bethesda, said:  "We're going to write the great American novel. It's gonna be this thick, and on every page will be written comedy and tragedy and it will be wonderful, it'll be amazing. And you're gonna give this book, this great American novel, to the player and what are they gonna do with it? They are gonna rip out every page and make paper airplanes out of them. And they are gonna throw them around. And they are never gonna see your story. Because, the story is there but they are going to spend 30 hours making shacks. They're going to spend 20 hours looking for bobbleheads. But that's okay, we know that going in. That's the jagged pill that we swallow when we do this."

I think it's clear that this philosophy has pervaded the industry.  (This is NOT a post about Emil Pagliarulo, btw)

Is it correct, though?  Probably, to a degree.  A lot of people likely just see the wordy bits as rest areas between game-play.  Does that mean that writing should then be aimed at the lowest common denominator?  

Because it looks like that is what BioWare is doing in order to be accessible to as many people as possible.  They have points that they want to emphasize but they aren't subtle about the way they do it and they don't really care about how they get there or how they move to the next point down the line.  And, to be real, I'm sure that it's a way easier, cheaper, and allows the developers to be much more flexible during development.

Is this the future of gaming?

I'd personally argue that good storytelling and writing matter a lot in games.
But maybe I'm just not the "mass" of people they are aiming for.

I'm kinda surprised you're surprised with Bioware, since the writing was on the wall, ever since Mass Effect II.

If we're being honest, writing was on the wall, though in much smaller print, ever since Neverwinter Nights, when they ditched full party and went for more action oriented affair - that they managed to recuperate design-wise after that with KOTOR was just a blip in retrospect, and DA:O was just a last burst of past glory before total collapse of their proverbial organism.

It is what inevitably happens when, something that started as a passion to make VG counterparts of TTRPGs, like in case of Doctors who made Bioware, goes fully into mainstream and needs to sell enough to lowest common denominator.

Never go full mainstream.

Bit off the topic, but dragon dogma 2 is on sale? Any good? I figure DA folks might be knowledgeable of dragon dogma. I never played the series.

Nothing reflects this more to me than DmC. Before launch and post launch both from the devs and and journalists insulted fans of DMC then when DmC rightfully failed. Journalists then acted like children and insulted DMC fans some more. I won't turn this into a DmC thread but oh boy that was one of the biggest publishers did not read the room and just insulted people der no white hair when that was never a real issue. This keeps happening and publishers practically never learn and take the wrong lessons. Capcom did and we got DMC5 but that is a rare win in these situations.

I mean these are Sims developers, right? Did we really expect a true Dragon Age experience from them? EA has let Bioware die a slow death and they are not staffed properly anymore. This was a final attempt at riding on the name of an established franchise, nothing more. So they let these people play with their politics in a Sims fantasy spinoff.
Actually diverse things like the elves, dwarves and qunari are just humans with accessories here, it's unimaginative and stupid because these people don't have the capacity to see beyond their personal circumstances in the real world. The character creator is so fucking "inclusive" that you can't even make a natural woman with curves, but hey, we got top surgery scars, right?
Pathetic.
Been a fan since Origins, but I have to let this go now. This franchise has let out its last wet fart and died in front of me.